tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-45607496046522619032024-03-05T01:23:18.684-08:00evolutioThis blog has been set up for my thoughts and reflections on the Westminster University 23 things programme, a discovery programme to explore Web 2.0 technology and its uses at work and at home.
Its name 'evolutio' comes from the Latin evolvere meaning to roll out. The term evolutio therefore was applied to the act of rolling out a scroll, and thus brings with it the translation "the opening (and reading) of a book".I'll Be There For Youhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09496110336892722809noreply@blogger.comBlogger34125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4560749604652261903.post-53128611060389777342011-10-14T04:34:00.000-07:002011-10-14T04:34:28.193-07:00QR U?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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It's no secret that I'm a bit of a fan of QR codes and the possibilities they offer. For orientation this academic year we created a QR trail round Marylebone library to link people to further information or video clips (e.g. QR next to the self-service machine went to a video of someone using that machine). When I get the time I will be reflecting on this and how it went (probably just in time for next year's orientation at this rate.....). But this blog post I wanted to mention an exhibition I attended at the V&A (as part of <a href="http://www.mastercard.co.uk/priceless-cities/london/">MasterCard's Priceless London</a>-which is brilliant by the way- attend one of their free priceless events if you can) entitled "Power of Making". <a href="http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/exhibitions/power-of-making/power-of-making/">This exhibition</a>, from the V&A and the Crafts Council, invites you to consider the role of making while marveling at the many curiosities on display such as a gorilla made out of wire coat-hangers, a wooden carved lion coffin and a six-necked guitar. The bit that caught my eye though was <b>'QR U' beaded dress and necklace</b> designed by Thorunn Arnadottir, a dress decorated with Swarovski Crystals beaded into QR codes. See pictures and info <a href="http://www.dezeen.com/2011/06/30/qr-u-by-thorunn-arnadottir/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+dezeen+%28Dezeenfeed%29">here.</a> Queue a small group of slightly tipsy girls (MasterCard are very generous with their free bar) waving their smartphones around and trying to explain to the uninitiated what was happening. Eventually we made the dress one work and stood round mesmerized by the accompanying <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jC9ivM6ZYM4&sns=em">YouTube clip</a>.</div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">However we were less-successful with the QR code pictured which was earlier in the exhibition and was supposed to link to the schedule for events taking place related to the exhibition. Whether it was the unsteady hands or the code itself is unclear......</span>I'll Be There For Youhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09496110336892722809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4560749604652261903.post-24248459559859091382011-08-06T03:11:00.000-07:002011-08-06T03:11:57.903-07:00One final Wordle....a blog summarised<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgaIoLaLOmrY4x0avsFyUKGdz6wjOM5QwvZRdnHsDJfQ30lxWObR2V5kgAXJNIlROCcrOKG_yqInSDvEPr_dOMlL7k8OPdHG1hoYEV7SzWUzh6ltpSM6sXhiIAAS-GCIlyXczvclSTuTM/s1600/wordle3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="356" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgaIoLaLOmrY4x0avsFyUKGdz6wjOM5QwvZRdnHsDJfQ30lxWObR2V5kgAXJNIlROCcrOKG_yqInSDvEPr_dOMlL7k8OPdHG1hoYEV7SzWUzh6ltpSM6sXhiIAAS-GCIlyXczvclSTuTM/s640/wordle3.jpg" width="640" /> </a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">From <a href="http://wordle.net/">Wordle.net</a></span> </div>I'll Be There For Youhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09496110336892722809noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4560749604652261903.post-80967300135228846512011-08-04T04:48:00.000-07:002011-08-04T05:04:32.166-07:00Amazing, still it seems, I reached 23.....<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUbwv_x5ThUXuWFo3XobGJElyvs65P7mBYsJPukltgIcu6iqFiOEGRGR7OCeNXnC4bF3neXxEsrViiMlS-lod2a1Ihu2VlCDyFb2wiWmnhq1AtrAxZK0uFf5wwn1Fw2TSDSxrB3wVTl30/s1600/champagne.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUbwv_x5ThUXuWFo3XobGJElyvs65P7mBYsJPukltgIcu6iqFiOEGRGR7OCeNXnC4bF3neXxEsrViiMlS-lod2a1Ihu2VlCDyFb2wiWmnhq1AtrAxZK0uFf5wwn1Fw2TSDSxrB3wVTl30/s320/champagne.jpg" width="240" /></a> </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Title inspired by <a href="http://youtu.be/tsgtHf9Bewo">Jimmy Eat World (23)</a>....</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">So we've come to the end of the road and in this post I look back at the highs and lows of 23 things. Firstly I have thoroughly enjoyed this programme. I think most people know I am a big fan of web-type things and I do try and keep up with new technologies. So although I had already tried out several of the things I still learned a great deal from 23 things. This is mainly due to the fact that it allowed me time to look at these tools properly and assess them in terms of how I could use them at work. I personally feel it is an extremely important part of our jobs to keep ahead or at least up-to-date with these technologies. To do this we need to be able to have the freedom and time (a scarce commodity...) to try things out, to see the relevance (or lack thereof) of the different tools from the end user's perspective and to reflect on what worked and what didn't. 23 things has enabled us to do that and I intend to keep this blog to continue my reflection on new technologies that come my way and to set myself a target of exploring and reflecting on something new every month or so. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I can see how these tools can help in all three aspects which form the core of the work we do (resource development, teaching and learning, relationship building). Particularly from the fashion courses I support I have noticed that academics are looking to me to help them with both the technical know-how of to use these tools and also in helping them understand how they can use them in their work and with their students. This maybe due to the fact that I am already very passionate about web 2.0 stuff and have the confidence in these technologies to be able to help, but I can see how programmes like 23 things (cf. <a href="http://cpd23.blogspot.com/">CPD23</a>) can help in providing those less confident with further skills and experience. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">One of the things I liked most about 23 things was reading other people's blogs, it was great to see what other fellow 23 thing-ers thought about each thing and whether their opinions on the tools were different or similar to mine. One of the things I disliked the most was the lack of momentum, I know it's difficult sometimes when there are distractions throughout the academic year and I appreciate that people need time to catch up but I think often the pauses were too loooooong. I would have liked to do a full 23 too ;)</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><a href="http://evolutioblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/thing-3-rss-feeds.html"><b>Most useful tool that I discovered through 23 things:</b></a> Technically not one of the "things" in iteself but something I did discover through doing the programme was Google Reader's bundle facility. It is particularly useful for something like this where you have a collection of blogs and it is likely that someone will want to subscribe to the whole lot in one go, rather than subscribing to each blog individually. There are also advantages for creating bundles by selecting blogs on the same topic e.g. fashion and providing that bundle to staff/students to subscribe to.<br />
<b><a href="http://evolutioblog.blogspot.com/2010/12/thing-6-image-generators.html">Most fun tool:</a> </b>Probably LetterJames- despite not seeing the relevance of this when I first used it I have since grown to love its simplicity in creating original-looking images- it has now livened up many a blog post/Prezi of mine<br />
<b><a href="http://evolutioblog.blogspot.com/2011/02/thing-9-create-your-own-search-engine.html">Least useful tool:</a></b> Create your own search engine. Not enough added value for the effort needed.<br />
<a href="http://evolutioblog.blogspot.com/2011/05/thing-13-unlucky-for-some.html"><b>Most frustrating tool:</b></a><b> </b>Can create great sites really simply but I spend my time willing it to be so much more. <br />
<b><a href="http://evolutioblog.blogspot.com/2011/07/thing-15-social-media-facebook-linkedin.html">Tool I find most useful for work:</a></b> Twitter- it simply has transformed how I get my information about the profession, stay aware of current issues, and get updates from e-resource suppliers. It generally is a brilliant tool for my professional development and awareness<b>. </b>Also very useful in its ability to disseminate things I have learned on 23 things and drive traffic back to my blog!<b></b><br />
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So 23 things it's been fun, farewell and win me an iPad so I can continue to play (I mean learn).....<br />
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<b>evolutio</b><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Picture: Champagne bar at St. Pancras taken by Ellie</span>I'll Be There For Youhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09496110336892722809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4560749604652261903.post-12465354018700601672011-07-27T09:34:00.000-07:002011-07-27T09:34:57.849-07:00Thing 15: Social media (Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter)<div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQy1sdLLOddF9UDnuM206pgq935CmnMx2mV4Un8htQvqarGKQvgTGiwTvhkbU7V0AldgfmdN-J1LKhiSbXlK6RXe3lRdBuN3i1qJ1rVMEIV4jzzal05aj1qlV9qcSXFQyeP25HpZSwEmY/s1600/tree.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQy1sdLLOddF9UDnuM206pgq935CmnMx2mV4Un8htQvqarGKQvgTGiwTvhkbU7V0AldgfmdN-J1LKhiSbXlK6RXe3lRdBuN3i1qJ1rVMEIV4jzzal05aj1qlV9qcSXFQyeP25HpZSwEmY/s320/tree.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><br />
Have you ever noticed that 15 is the new 23? I believe that this is our last 23 thing, I think the reasoning behind this is that on some of the "things" we have looked at more than one thing and therefore we have reached 23. .....No, me neither.</div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">So our last thing is Social Media, I have used all the three sites listed for this thing regularly so all I have to do is review them and my challenge will be to do so succinctly.</div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><b>Facebook</b></div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Weirdly I remember the exact moment I first heard about Facebook, I was in my home-town during the University holidays and friends at Uni at Oxford and St. Andrews were talking about being on Facebook. When it first arrived in this country it was restricted to those two Unis plus Cambridge. Then when I got my trainee job at Cambridge Uni, and with it a cam.ac.uk email address, I was finally let into the Facebook world and have not looked back since. Not long after that it was opened publicly so I only had exclusive access for a very short while. I have always thought of Facebook as purely social, I would never use it to find professional contacts and information and very rarely add people I currently work with onto Facebook. Not because I'm particularly private, just because I prefer to draw a line between work and play, and Facebook is my "play"-time. It is the site I visit most regularly on the web and I store most my photos on there. I do tend to check-in to places and update my status regularly just because it creates for me a nice archive of things I have done, perhaps as a substitute diary. I keep in contact with friends who I see regularly in the "real world" but also it allows me to stay in touch with people I don't, for any number of reasons, see regularly. I have noticed in the last couple of years a drop-off of people using it but I can't envisage it ever being the wasteland that MySpace and Bebo became. I know many libraries are on Facebook but I have always slightly agreed with the argument that for students it is their social space and libraries on there are like the embarrasing dad dancing at a party. Having said that with the now not-so-recent creation of "pages" organisations can create, what seems to me, a more professional and more detached (as opposed to the smaller, more personal interaction Facebook groups affords), stand-alone site which students can "like" to get updates. So maybe my position on Facebook needs a rethink and maybe we should be discussing it as another option in reaching our net wider and making ourselves more visible.<br />
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P.S. for anyone on Facebook who hasn't tried <a href="http://www.intel.com/museumofme/r/index.htm%20">Museum of Me</a>- do so now- it's brilliant! Thanks to Allan for the heads-up on that. </div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><b><br />
</b></div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><b>LinkedIn</b></div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">I'm on LinkedIn but that is as far as it goes. I have never really used it beyond having a <a href="http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=47959543&authType=NAME_SEARCH&authToken=_CDK&locale=en_US&srchid=5ef247a1-eeb6-4752-8b36-0ab435b4a39b-0&srchindex=1&srchtotal=26&goback=%2Efps_PBCK_ellie+murphy_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*2_*1_Y_*1_*1_*1_false_1_R_true_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2&pvs=ps&trk=pp_profile_name_link">profile</a> and connecting to work colleagues, I have never really felt the need to use it as a tool with which to interact with people. I did add a widget to my blogs on there and as I am connected to academics I suppose that is another network in which I am advertising my blogs. It seems to often be touted as a great career tool so I would love to know if anyone has found a job through it, for example. I suppose it is good to be seen on a professional network though and so I will continue to maintain my profile and look for connections. </div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><b>Twitter <a href="http://twitter.com/elliemurphylib">@elliemurphylib</a></b></div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">I am absolutely a Twitter convert and find it one of the most useful professional tools. To start off with I didn't really see the value and didn't really get it. But I persevered and I found it made much more sense to me firstly when I got it on my mobile (timely information is a bit limited if you have to wait until your signed in on your PC) and when I had started following a good set of people tweeting valuable stuff. I do have a separate personal account but don't really use that much as not many friends are on Twitter, it's connected to my Facebook account so if anything it's just another way to update that. I have done <a href="http://prezi.com/hfgrdukzkwmc/twitter-introduction-fashion-mgmt/">training sessions</a> for several academics now who are starting to see the benefit of Twitter but aren't quite sure where to start. The most useful advantages of Twitter I find are:</div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"></div><ul style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><li>Current awareness for professional development. I find now I use Twitter I very rarely use JISC mailing lists. I follow many librarians on Twitter and through them I am kept up to date with most things that are going on in library world, it's a fantastic awareness tool to help with professional development. It provides more breadth than I could get from mailing lists unless I subscribed to a lot more than I do currently and as they are just quick alerts I can choose to follow them up or quickly scan through them.</li>
<li>Crowd-sourcing. As there are so many (helpful!) librarians on Twitter (amongst other user-groups) it provides a great pool of knowledge if you want to ask a question. I have previously asked questions on the use of QR codes and have got instant replies.</li>
<li>Information from business sources. As well as library related current awareness it is useful to keep up to date with what is happening in the business world and things I have read about on Twitter have sometimes formed an idea for a blog post on our business resources blog. Most database suppliers are also on Twitter and it is useful to follow these for developments and news. </li>
<li>Connecting to academics. There aren't a huge amount of Uni people I am connected to on Twitter but it is one more network where I can interact with academics and tweet/retweet relevant pieces of information to them. </li>
<li>Some Unis use Twitter as a sort of Ask-A-Librarian tool and I have also had a couple of my students tweeting me questions. The University Twitter account monitors and responds to student queries.</li>
<li>Monitor what is said about your service! Twitter search offers invaluable insights into what is being said about your service and gives you a chance to respond.</li>
</ul><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">It's quite clear that different social media tools offer different advantages and that we shouldn't just embrace everything but select the right tool for the job. I think the best way to do this is to start using the tools yourself to really evaluate what their value is and how they can benefit our users, rather than just dismissing social media out-of-hand. Next tool to evaluate: Google Plus!<br />
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<b>Further reading:</b><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">I recently presented at a CPD25 event looking with Emma Woods entitled:</span><span style="font-size: small;"> ‘Follow Us On …: Using Social Networks And Technology To Reach Readers’, Emma and I talked about our blogs, Dave Puplett spoke about what social media the library uses at LSE and Tim Fletcher talked about Twitter at Birkbeck. To see a write-up of the event and links to presentations see the <a href="http://thoughtsofawannabelibrarian.wordpress.com/2011/07/20/follow-us-on-using-social-networks-and-technology-to-reach-readers-a-cpd25-event/">thoughts of a [wannabe] librarian</a> blog.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Pic: Tree of networks, Lower Benefield, Northants taken by Ellie</span></span></div>I'll Be There For Youhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09496110336892722809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4560749604652261903.post-60172872608604184362011-07-24T08:09:00.000-07:002011-07-24T08:09:21.335-07:00Thing 14: Create a podcast/vodcast......did I?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-yBQ2VJwHU5c/Tiw1XilArmI/AAAAAAAAAI0/WhFEOjXkNRw/s1600/04sep2010+%25281%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-yBQ2VJwHU5c/Tiw1XilArmI/AAAAAAAAAI0/WhFEOjXkNRw/s320/04sep2010+%25281%2529.JPG" width="240" /></a></div><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Maybe I did speak too soon. I thought the video would appear embedded in my previous post, instead you have to click on the post title which isn't very clear but it will hopefully keep my video clip hidden..... Also just followed the Feedburner part of the instructions </span><a href="http://google.about.com/od/googleblogging/ss/podblogger.htm" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">here</a><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"> but I already had set up my Feedburner feed so I was already off-road in terms of the instructions. I changed the setting in FeedBurner to activate the smartcast settings but now I have no idea whether it works and I'm not sure how you know whether it works or where you subscribe to just the podcast element of the blog. At this stage I am losing the will to live so before my Sunday is swallowed up completely I am going to leave it there. Video clip: done, vodcast: who knows.....</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Pic: Durham Catherdral, taken by Ellie</span>I'll Be There For Youhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09496110336892722809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4560749604652261903.post-76980118852657273232011-07-24T07:44:00.000-07:002011-07-24T07:44:37.359-07:00Thing 14: Create a podcast/vodcastOK....here goes....popcorn at the ready....hopefully this is the video clip I created talking about the move from InfoLinX to Library Search (I hesitate to say podcast as, unless I get much faster at doing this, this will not form one of a series of webcasts and will continue to stand alone as a video clip....). It did take me quite a while to create mostly because I kept deleting previous efforts through sheer vanity.<br />
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I think it's nice to have a visual clip such as this on a profile page, for example, as an introduction to yourself or discussing a particular topic but I don't see huge merit in creating regular podcasts for students. I have no evidence either way but I've never thought of podcasts as particularly popular amongst students. While I was doing my Masters the only podcast I ever wanted to listen to was the Ricky Gervais show....but maybe that's just me. While it took me quite a while to create the video clip I was pleasently surprised at how easy it was to upload it to Blogger so maybe a podcast tied in with a blog makes more sense, especially if the podcasts were, say, once a term. I haven't yet moved onto the Feedburner part of the instructions so maybe I've spoken too soon. Anyway hope you enjoy! (I'm going to look away now....)I'll Be There For Youhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09496110336892722809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4560749604652261903.post-47370661377383627632011-06-17T04:12:00.000-07:002011-06-17T04:12:21.370-07:00Upwardly mobile....<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5023/5609815868_89d385fb74.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5023/5609815868_89d385fb74.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Hurrah! Just discovered that Blogger now makes it very easy to make your blog mobile friendly. To make your blog mobile friendly just go to settings-> email & mobile, select yes to "on mobile devices" and save those settings. To see the mobile version of this blog enter its URL into your mobile browser or zap the QR code below.</div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgejpXtSHHt07doMPk1lYoWtlXF6ZN53EUWi9ds7t6D0JPTpNrDewV94UZWy_9VJQar4kcwofnLl5FxhbETO-n-wN3k4OimxJteBJjZSmOf-hNyY_BZ5yFKjRGomgMXR7JE1UC-tPkKJ5c/s1600/blogQR.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgejpXtSHHt07doMPk1lYoWtlXF6ZN53EUWi9ds7t6D0JPTpNrDewV94UZWy_9VJQar4kcwofnLl5FxhbETO-n-wN3k4OimxJteBJjZSmOf-hNyY_BZ5yFKjRGomgMXR7JE1UC-tPkKJ5c/s1600/blogQR.jpg" /></a></div><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Pic: Lincolnshire from a balloon taken by Ellie</span></span>I'll Be There For Youhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09496110336892722809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4560749604652261903.post-77185090558493953612011-06-03T05:25:00.000-07:002011-06-03T05:25:54.800-07:00#cpd23 23 things for professional development<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5263/5659029182_d3f70dfedc.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5263/5659029182_d3f70dfedc.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
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</tbody></table><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">A 23 things programme for professional development is due to start at the end of June. For those at institutions who have not run their own 23 things programme, or for those who want to explore some potentially different 23 things, this provides the perfect opportunity to get involved. The description from the <a href="http://cpd23.blogspot.com/">CPD23 blog</a> is as follows:</div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">"Inspired by the 23 Things programmes for social media, this new programme will consist of a mixture of social media "Things" and "Things" to do with professional development and will run from the end of June to the start of October 2011. It is aimed at people working at all levels of the library/information profession, from graduate trainees through to the more experienced. If you're interested but not sure you match this description (for example if you're currently studying LIS or are working in a different field) join in anyway - all are welcome!"</div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Go to the <a href="http://cpd23.blogspot.com/">CPD23 blog</a> to get a taster of the 23 things and to pre-register your own 23 things reflection blog.</div><br />
Picture: Rape fields in Northamptonshire take by EllieI'll Be There For Youhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09496110336892722809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4560749604652261903.post-57141082159717308322011-05-25T07:15:00.000-07:002011-05-25T07:15:56.186-07:00Thing 13: unlucky for some.....<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEige2OiQenIdiyQ6rvxj_at41EplRhmoB_iWU4z6pF9m9QCBLsgGXRiMFzjM_cmzIjtBVjAtTGX9SvxPq8GDfFxfDh7tPoZWaH3LEYsi2UtE27ivi57OWDwSWCURk25MrwhPu028rBTvEw/s1600/P5022840.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEige2OiQenIdiyQ6rvxj_at41EplRhmoB_iWU4z6pF9m9QCBLsgGXRiMFzjM_cmzIjtBVjAtTGX9SvxPq8GDfFxfDh7tPoZWaH3LEYsi2UtE27ivi57OWDwSWCURk25MrwhPu028rBTvEw/s320/P5022840.JPG" width="240" /></a></div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">My Google site: <a href="https://sites.google.com/site/evolutiosite/">presenting David Ford</a></div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Oh my goodness me. I love Google but Google sites is not their finest hour. I think the word frustration has been mentioned in other 23-thingers blogs regarding this one and I concur. As part of a task and finish group last summer I had the task of creating our profile pages using Google sites. I absolutely love doing things like this but it took a lot of patience to get it even vaguely how I wanted it thanks to the functionality, or lack thereof, of Google sites. One advantage to using Google sites was that we already have a staff Google account so we didn't need to sign up to another provider and it meant everyone could log-in to edit their own page. But the main thing I did find beneficial to this project was that it was extremely easy duplicate sites- once I had created the basic template I could quite quickly and simply replicate this for everyone in our team, all that was required then was individual cutomization.</div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">However all the difficulties came flooding back when I tried to create a new page for this week's Thing. It's just so hard to get things to look how you want to look. You have to keep saving and then checking what that looks like every time you edit as the preview never seems to even nearly match what you want. It's very hard to re-size things or move them where you want to go. It takes ages to find a template and theme that can work for you and then you spend forever trying to customize it to make it look slightly less naff. Seriously, learning basic HTML and CSS is quicker and easier than this. </div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">This time round the thing I found most annoying was trying to add gadgets. If you want a basic, static site then Google sites is fine. However I think sites should be pulling in information from all arenas- RSS feeds, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr etc via gadgets/widgets. As Google own YouTube, this gadget is prominently featured, for any others you have to face searching the dregs of public gadgets, only a few that you might want to use are "featured", you have to hunt down any others. If I was more tecchy I could create a gadget myself, but I'm not. I think to get what I was aiming to achieve there are far better tools available....Netvibes and Tumblr come to mind. If I left behind my love of gadgets and stopped trying to make Google sites something it's not then, as a fair assessment, I can see the advantages of it and can see its uses as a good wiki to share information in a team; it has the function to upload documents etc. and it is easy to use if you're happy with a basic looking page to share and store information. Could do better, Google, could do better....</div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"></div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Thing #13 summary: </div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Stay simple and Google sites is fine, beyond that look elsewhere if you want to keep your sanity.....</div><a href="https://sites.google.com/site/evolutiosite/" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">https://sites.google.com/site/evolutiosite/</a><br />
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Photo: David Ford at the Borderline 2011 taken by EllieI'll Be There For Youhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09496110336892722809noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4560749604652261903.post-44526154547099142452011-04-28T03:04:00.000-07:002011-04-28T03:04:27.923-07:00Delicious not doomed!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5142/5647563156_fdc49e1a91.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5142/5647563156_fdc49e1a91.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Any fans of Thing 10 will be pleased to hear that Delicious.com has been saved from the web 2.0 graveyard and has been bought from Yahoo! by Chad Hurley and Steve Chen, the founders of YouTube (having sold th</span><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">at to Google in 2006- are you keeping up?). Read the story </span><a href="http://www.techradar.com/news/internet/delicious-snapped-up-by-youtube-founders-949036" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">here.</a><br />
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Photo: Sign above a jewellers in Oundle, Northants taken by EllieI'll Be There For Youhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09496110336892722809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4560749604652261903.post-64291367830329470132011-04-28T02:45:00.000-07:002011-05-09T06:06:54.136-07:00Thing 12: Google docs<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5223/5658466695_6958965b87.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5223/5658466695_6958965b87.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">We use Google docs as a team quite a lot. The various Google doc applications allows you to share spreadsheets on which you can all collaborate without worrying about version control, write a report together from miles apart while chatting using the in-built instant messager, and save and edit presentations amongst other things. One of its main advantages is collaboration. As we get a Google Apps account as part of our Westminster University IT package it seems a natural thing to use these as a tool in our working lives. </div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">We also recently created <a href="https://sites.google.com/a/staff.westminster.ac.uk/ellie-murphy/">profile pages</a> for our team- Google sites gave us the flexible to create a simple website and then share it with other team members so that they can hold the rights to edit their own pages as they wish.</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I also like using it just as a storage for documents. I remember at Uni frequently emailing myself essay drafts from the library as I had forgotten to take anything to save them on, getting back to my laptop only to curse myself for not saving it as a text document having realised I didn't have the same version of Word as the Uni computers. Now all you need to do is log into your Google account and upload your latest oeuvre to work on later. Storage space for documents you can access from anywhere with an internet connection- another huge advantage.</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">One of the main disadvantages has always been functionality- that was never going to be its main winning feature against the likes of Microsoft. However Google are even trying to lure those still clinging to Office with <a href="http://tools.google.com/dlpage/cloudconnect">Cloud Connect</a>- this allows you to download a plug-in for Office so that you can work within the Micrsoft Office environment while using the plug-in to save&sync those documents to the Google Cloud. These documents can then also be shared and simultaneously edited by multiple people, from within Office, thus mixing the functionality/familiarity advantages of Office with the collaborative/sharing advantages of Google Docs. As you have to have admin rights to download this onto Uni computers I am unable to test this out but this seems like something as a team we should investigate to see if it gives us the advantage of the collaboration we have got used to with the added benefits of being able to create something from within Office.</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Thing 12 summary: The advantages to using Google docs have always been very clear to me, the added value it brings is probably why it is the Thing most heavily used by our team. It will be interesting to see what effect our new content management system, Alfresco, which also has tools to allow collaborative documents, has on our use of Google. I would also be interested to see how Cloud Connect could be used.</span><br />
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Photo: Bluebell in Lower Benefield, Northamptonshire taken by EllieI'll Be There For Youhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09496110336892722809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4560749604652261903.post-10685197363825137312011-03-09T10:06:00.000-08:002011-03-09T10:06:44.211-08:00Thing 11: Technorati<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-vROWzucP--o/TXe_MYGE69I/AAAAAAAAAGI/SLfDNqL61Xc/s1600/PA242441.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-vROWzucP--o/TXe_MYGE69I/AAAAAAAAAGI/SLfDNqL61Xc/s320/PA242441.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">I<span style="font-size: small;"> am quite glad this Thing came along now, firstly because it follows on from my previous posts about raising the blogs' visibility and secondly because it findly reminds me to add this code into a post: </span></span><span style="font-size: small;">Q3NVXVBSKQMT</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">I registered all my blogs on Technorati a while ago and I managed to stick the codes surreptitiously (hah!) into the bottom of some posts on my other blogs but kept forgetting on this blog. Adding this code will mean that Technorati will now believe me when I told them I am the author of this blog. I mentioned Technorati when I was talking at our team day about raising the blogs' visibilty externally; Technorati indexes blogs and ranks them according to their authority (based on how much the blog is referenced by other sites and in-bound links), you can then display your ranking (if it's something to be proud of) on your blog. So now all my blogs are indexed by Technorati and thus exposed in the wider blogosphere that little bit more. Actually, having just logged in, I realised that my fashion business blog still hasn't been registered so I will get onto that.....</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Another site which offers a very similar service is Wikio. Wikio's emphasis is more on news stories, calling itself a news search engine, but it also does feature a blog ranking section. There are some differences in the way Technorati and Wikio rank blogs but as I am not likely to get very high in the rankings I'm not too worried about the differences. What I did notice though was that on Wikio it was a lot easier for me to register my blogs. You can do it <a href="http://www.wikio.com/addblog">here.</a> You don't have to register for an account and there was none of this having to fit a claim code in your posts. Having said that, thinking it about it again, I have no idea what happened after I registered my Wikio blogs and I can't find them so again more investigation is needed.......</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">From the other perspective I honestly don't think I would ever use sites like these to find blogs of interest; I would take recommendations from friends/colleagues, blogs I read or just by doing a general search. But in the name of 23 things I tried a search. I searched for fashion management/fashion business/retail blogs to add to my fashion blog "blog-roll". Initially the search wasn't much good- a lot of vaguely related blogs of little authority, however I managed to find the "refine" button, which was actually very useful as it allowed me to see only high authority blogs and choose a particular category. This narrowed the search well down and I found a few good blogs but wasn't hugely successful. I then tried a browse to find the highest ranked music blogs, nothing particularly inspiring. Searched for posts on "David Ford" and found nothing. Started to want to give up. Then I did a search for Classics and came across the brilliant <a href="http://timesonline.typepad.com/dons_life/">Mary Beard's Times Online blog</a>. I found out from this that she taught Latin as part of Jamie Oliver's Dream School (though has featured very little so far). It's great that Latin was included as part of this Dream School- it could do with a bit of a boost, and I hope she features more later in the series. </span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: small;">Summary of thing 11: A good way to easily raise the visibility of your blog and direct a wider audience towards you. For finding blogs I didn't find it <i>that </i>useful so will look forward to read other 23 thing-ers posts to see if I've missed something. I have come across Mary Beard's blog in the past so I can't claim Technorati did a lot here but in this instance I suppose it did get me to the blog and has reminded me to add it to my RSS feed. So a small amount of success.....</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Photo: Fish at London Zoo taken by Ellie </span></span>I'll Be There For Youhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09496110336892722809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4560749604652261903.post-48423815007590370602011-03-09T10:05:00.000-08:002011-03-09T10:05:47.822-08:00Back to blogging 2<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4TmZSymeJ4sXL2SJrdgfSRtTFIpu5F6YOmOjKdnRaZcGqq583g_LMJuxaXJ2yEq-UuN_nSq1eWZPyKsbTd0owrFYuOfkZEYiZXtktJ6IBzjMJ1M18WLTJf0aDcv73ngSQObv9kQkDFAE/s1600/21jul2010+%252814%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4TmZSymeJ4sXL2SJrdgfSRtTFIpu5F6YOmOjKdnRaZcGqq583g_LMJuxaXJ2yEq-UuN_nSq1eWZPyKsbTd0owrFYuOfkZEYiZXtktJ6IBzjMJ1M18WLTJf0aDcv73ngSQObv9kQkDFAE/s320/21jul2010+%252814%2529.JPG" width="240" /></a></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Following on from my previous <a href="http://evolutioblog.blogspot.com/2011/02/back-to-blogging-promoting-blogs.html">post</a> on this topic, here are some of the tools I have used to raise my blogs' visibility and to promote it externally:</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b>Feedburner: </b><a href="http://www.feedburner.com/">Feedburner</a> is a service which provides several different tools<b> </b>to help promote and manage your blog.<b> </b>There are other individual services that will allow you to do similar things to Feedburner but I prefer Feedburner as it provides all these services under one roof. For example, the optimize tab of Feedburner features several services to enhance your blog and reach a wider audience. Activate them and let Feedburner do the work for you. Plus now it is owned by Google I don't have to remember a separate username and password to my Blogger account- always a bonus. In addition, Feedburner provides stats for your blog and you can also manage more than one blog from your Feedburner account. There's lots to explore on Feedburner, but I will mention the parts I have found most useful.</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b>To do:</b> Sign in to Feedburner using your Google username and password or register for an account. In Feedburner enter the URL to your blog where prompted, select your RSS feed, Feedburner will then give you the option to choose a name for your feed and a new feed address. For example I chose http://feeds.feedburner.com/evolutio as my feedburner feed URL for this blog.</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b><br />
</b></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b>Email subscription: </b>It is a good idea to put a link on your blog offering subscription by RSS but some people may not use RSS or may prefer to get the updates straight to their email inbox. Feedburner allows you to offer an email subscription to your blog; every time you post your subcribers will get the new post delivered to their inbox.<b> </b></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b>To do:</b> Click on the Publicize tab and from the menu choose "subscription management".</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-enY41WgGNUasK0i9DJHzmhwW1a3_hOISRatqGevT1JEmkl4g_uwPAESfCWR2V-O5R33HdHRlM9-XLpRpI-V4rF9Zn2O3nZnNLGoNRG_HeMa0VwkywZOE8Dtg70ZekvcKtFFwriL70G8/s1600/evolutio.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="70" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-enY41WgGNUasK0i9DJHzmhwW1a3_hOISRatqGevT1JEmkl4g_uwPAESfCWR2V-O5R33HdHRlM9-XLpRpI-V4rF9Zn2O3nZnNLGoNRG_HeMa0VwkywZOE8Dtg70ZekvcKtFFwriL70G8/s320/evolutio.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">This will give you some HTML code which you can copy and paste into your blog, I chose to also add this into my Google site "profile page" so readers can automatically subscribe from there, without even having to go to the blog. But the easiest thing to do, if you use Blogger like me, is to automatically add a widget- in "use as a widget in..." choose Blogger and this will set up your "subscribe via email" widget for you on your blog.<b> </b>You can see mine (and subscribe) in the right-hand menu of this blog.<b> </b>Feedburner also provides a URL link which you can add to your email signature, offering email subscription from there.<b> </b>Under your analyze tab you can see how many have subscribed and get a list of email addresses of your subscribers.<b><br />
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</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b>Automatic posting to Twitter:</b> I already have a "work" Twitter account to which I post snippets of info and forward on things I have found, some of my academics follow me on Twitter so I am able to push content to them through this channel. Feedburner allows you to automatically update your Twitter account every time you post to your blog. Under their "socialize" tab you can add a Twitter account and then choose how you want your automatic posts to look. For example, for the business librarians' blog, I chose for it to tweet the title of the post, a link back to the blog and for every tweet to be prefaced by "From WBS Librarians" to make it clear where the content originated. The tweets appear like this: <i>From WBS Librarians: Featured resource: FAME: How to do a peer analysis <a href="http://westminsterbusinessstudies.blogspot.com/2011/02/featured-resource-fame-how-to-do-peer.html" target="link">http://goo.gl/fb/abcd</a></i> And that's it- content pushed to my Twitter audience, re-directing people back to the blog, and with no extra effort from me. Services such as <a href="http://twitterfeed.com/">Twitterfeed</a> also offer this, if you prefer not to use Feedburner.</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b>To do:</b> Click on the "publicize" tab and then from the menu choose "socialize". Add your Twitter name (you need to register with Twitter beforehand) and then choose your formatting options, such as whether you want any text automatically added to the start or end of each Tweet. For Tweets from this blog I have chosen to add #wmin23 before each Tweet as this is the Twitter tag we chose for the Westminster 23 things programme.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZtr8CzcuUU7padAJeeR1oGHwCu5ysF_A11m_dKUvEeSy8JcD2N3PhrMhnpuTgiJJVPI6cwvBwWLsBis4jL6hFJJmSzSSO-FG9tXuiSURgV-5x1eptOfD_oiDUz1KJsg5Zy0pMYZyO0CU/s1600/evolutio2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="221" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZtr8CzcuUU7padAJeeR1oGHwCu5ysF_A11m_dKUvEeSy8JcD2N3PhrMhnpuTgiJJVPI6cwvBwWLsBis4jL6hFJJmSzSSO-FG9tXuiSURgV-5x1eptOfD_oiDUz1KJsg5Zy0pMYZyO0CU/s320/evolutio2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">It just so happens that the next thing I was going to mention, Technorati, is our next "Thing" so stay tuned for the next post about that and Wikio......</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Photo: on board Adventure of the Seas, somewhere in the Med., taken by Ellie </span></div>I'll Be There For Youhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09496110336892722809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4560749604652261903.post-57348725169428363342011-03-04T01:48:00.000-08:002011-03-04T01:48:42.344-08:00World Book Night approaches<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.worldbooknight.org/images/wbn/World-Book-Night-Logo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://www.worldbooknight.org/images/wbn/World-Book-Night-Logo.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: left;">World Book Night is a new initiative to accompany World Book Day. Tomorrow night an army of 20,000 volunteers (including me) will be giving out one million free books to whomever they wish. There are 25 selected titles in the give-away and each volunteer has 48 copies to hand out. I chose to hand out Life of Pi as it is one of my all-time favourite books; one of the few books that I can read again and again and still learn from. It has, for me, an almost restorative power making me understand again the power of faith and hope. I will be handing out 48 copies in the Northamptonshire area, in and around Oundle. The scheme is launched in Trafalgar Square tonight and the books will be given out Saturday evening. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">You can read more about World Book Night and the other 24 titles that will be given away </span><a href="http://www.worldbooknight.org/" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">here.</a></div>I'll Be There For Youhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09496110336892722809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4560749604652261903.post-73235569421136175912011-02-23T02:41:00.000-08:002011-02-23T02:41:15.369-08:00Back to blogging: promoting blogs<div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifRMTOU92tC5efM7vuOK4VNpMkt683FlAiJNBYEeyICrwy6amFTUagoqQR3oXSgsxIzCKIS0vCZfZS3iLjviZZ3Rovf20oWWMnAeJwtH5UHGtfy3wue3IqTAxT8dEKnNIIx6Pv1LE7LgA/s1600/blogpic2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifRMTOU92tC5efM7vuOK4VNpMkt683FlAiJNBYEeyICrwy6amFTUagoqQR3oXSgsxIzCKIS0vCZfZS3iLjviZZ3Rovf20oWWMnAeJwtH5UHGtfy3wue3IqTAxT8dEKnNIIx6Pv1LE7LgA/s320/blogpic2.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><br />
<b>Not a Thing but Web 2.0 related....</b></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">During our team day recently I and some colleagues did a session on blogging. Many of the academic liaison librarian team write blogs to support their subjects; I write one for the <a href="http://www.westminsterfashionbusiness.blogspot.com/">fashion business courses</a> I support and I collaborate with the two other business librarians on the<a href="http://www.westminsterbusinessstudies.blogspot.com/"> blog to support Westminster Business School (WBS)</a>. My part of the session focused on promoting these subject-related blogs. </div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">It goes without saying that, with the effort we put into the blogs, we want to know there's someone out there reading them. Earlier in the blogging session Jemma, one of the IT training team, had fed back on a survey she did of students, their knowledge of our blogs and what they thought of them. One key thing that was highlighted was the visibility of the blogs- most of them thought it was a good idea but just didn't know about them. I therefore wanted to look at how we can make the blogs more visible and where we can position ourselves in our effort to promote the blogs. </div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b>Where are the readers coming from?</b></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Before the blogging session I checked the stats for our business blog. Blogger has its own section for stats, where you can get information about how many people are visiting your blog, where they're coming in from (referring URL) and even what operating system they use. <a href="http://www.sitemeter.com/">Sitemeter</a> and <a href="http://www.feedburner.com/">Feedburner</a> offer similar services and we use these too. Despite the dry nature of statistics it's actually pretty intruiging- for example, 94 page views this week on my fashion blog from France, more than the UK. The stats are also useful for identifying whether promoting the blog is working, what posts prove the most "readable" and to get some ideas of whether we have been promoting it in the right areas.</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">So I checked our traffic sources to see how readers had got to the business blog. This showed a range of different entry points including, amongst others, my <a href="http://www.linkedin.com/">LinkedIn</a> account (where I have a gadget which automatically updates with new blog posts- I am linked to a few of the academics on this social networking site), Blackboard (our VLE- we have a page of useful library links on one of the module pages), a module leader's reading list webpage (which I previously had no knowledge of- a link to our blog was listed at the top), my Twitter account, and a page we had set up to promote our services on the WBS intranet pages. There were also many who came in via a search engine. You can even see what keywords they used in the search engine which took them to the blog. Ours included "ISI dealwatch" "Mintel chocolate report" and "university of westminster infolinx mintel". There were several variations of the last example- InfoLinX was our previous e-resource platform, now superceded by "Library Search" which unfortunately isn't quite as "findable" when searching the internet as is "InfoLinX".......</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b>Internal promotion</b></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">We have made a start in promoting it to academics and to students, this has mainly been on an ad-hoc basis- in coversations, via emails etc. The links appearing in Blackboard and on reading lists are a result of such conversations and really help in promoting to the students. They are far more likely to look at something a lecturer tells them to, rather than me, and this is probably why the module leader's webpage (as mentioned above) is one of the top referring URLs. </div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">As a team in general we have tried to raise our profile on the intranet and, although we have a lot of work to do on increasing the visibility of such pages, some readers have managed to find their way to the blog that way. On my personal profile page I have added both links to the blog and a link to subscribe directly via email from my profile page (they don't even have to visit the blog!). I promote this profile page (which has all my contact details too) to students in training sessions and try to remember to point out the blog then. </div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Another initative from the blogging team was to ask lecturers to contribute with guest posts, and to ultimately make the blogs fully collaborative with the Schools, making them school-based resources, rather than library-based resources. This would help promote the blogs, create further links between the Schools and the Library and give it a sense of authority. This is an aim of mine but very far from being fulfilled. I have, however, posted an excellent guest post from the Honorary President of the Fashion Retail Club (a career networking online club run by University of Westminster for all fashion graduates and students around the world) for my fashion business blog. </span>Reflecting on this exercise I can see the benefits for liaison/relationship building as from me asking her to write a guest post she invited me to a promotion event for the club and we have discussed how we could work together in the future.</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b>External promotion</b></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The aim of looking at external promotion was to acknowledge the fact that the blogs aren't, at the moment, very visible. They need to be visible both internally and externally because, from looking at the blog's referring URLs, the readers might be arriving at the blog from anywhere.</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">In the session I mentioned sites which would help with raising the blog's visibility externally such as <a href="http://www.wikio.com/">Wikio</a> and <a href="http://technorati.com/">Technorati</a>. I also talked about using tools like <a href="http://www.feedburner.com/">Feedburner</a> and <a href="http://www.twitterfeed.com/">Twitterfeed</a> to promote the blogs to social networking sites, such as Twitter. These elements require a bit more pratical explanation and illustration and I am aware that my blog post is already far longer than the usual advice given for keeping a post concise. I will therefore post on these elements soon, including how to set up a feed to Twitter and the tools to use to promote to the social web. </div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The point I was trying to make mostly in this section of the session was there are several things that can be set up quite easily, which will run automatically with no extra effort from you and which will push blog content to the areas in which potential blog readers inhabit. Thus you are positioning your blog for them to access in a time and place of their choosing. </div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b>Keeping an eye on the stats</b></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Having set all these things up it is important to keep an eye on the stats, and particularly the referring URLs, to monitor whether promotion has increased the number of visitors to the blog and whether this promotion has been in the right "place" i.e. have more come in from Twitter or from Blackboard. With any luck the numbers will be up and the visibility raised!</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The Prezi for my session can be found </span><a href="http://prezi.com/yt5lse9ofji6/marketing-the-blogs/" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">here</a><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">. I'd be interested to hear if anyone has any other ideas for promoting blogs and I promise to post some pratical tips soon. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Picture: Last year's bounty taken by Ellie </span></span>I'll Be There For Youhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09496110336892722809noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4560749604652261903.post-3773205656177216722011-02-20T12:03:00.000-08:002011-02-20T12:03:53.767-08:00Thing 10: Tagging and Folksonomies (Delicious.com)<div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIFrIybJWv1DqlxCFSEkJuk08YojT5ZWxEXV942qq57f_HJscQyNVqbDxx5I3yc5VJH8qrD9K6mmmcaol5mhsk5ESMfMED1fhulVy9mWTIjsd-HoeTknsOI1RIOjgFsy8Nq-AREXfbHS8/s1600/PB201711.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIFrIybJWv1DqlxCFSEkJuk08YojT5ZWxEXV942qq57f_HJscQyNVqbDxx5I3yc5VJH8qrD9K6mmmcaol5mhsk5ESMfMED1fhulVy9mWTIjsd-HoeTknsOI1RIOjgFsy8Nq-AREXfbHS8/s320/PB201711.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><br />
I used to use <a href="http://www.delicious.com/">Delicious</a> quite a bit at my previous job. As it was an FE college there wasn't much in the way of e-resources, nor was there a gateway/portal to the ones we did have. There are also many good, free websites to suport literacy and numeracy so I used Delicious to collect these together and promote them. </div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">For this job I started to collect particular websites, such as statistics websites, as there are many of those available, particularly for European statistics. Also when going through reading lists I tried to keep the websites recommended on my Delicious accout, tagging them with the module code. </div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I have been on training courses where they provide a Delicious page of related websites, some of which are used in the training session and some of which are useful for reference post-session. I've always thought this to be a good use of Delicious. One such example is a JISC screencasting training session I went to recently- you can see their Delicious page </span><a href="http://www.delicious.com/jiscdigitalmedia/building_effective_screencasts" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">here.</a><br />
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</div><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">However, my enthusiasm for Delicious comes in waves. I have months when I don't use it and forget all about it and then months when I decide it's a good idea and go tagging mad. I'm not convinced though. Advantages include: it's very easy to add bookmarks, particularly if you have the internet browser add-on; you can subscribe to other people's tags so you can see what they're adding to their accounts in a topic of your interest; there are widgets available to help promote your tags on your blog; you can send and receive bookmark suggestions from other users; plus you can automatically post any bookmarks you add to Twitter, promoting them beyond the bounds of Delicious. Still I struggle to find it really essentially useful and I am inclined to agree with fellow Wmin23-er </span><a href="http://james-23things.blogspot.com/2011/02/like-trying-to-eat-elephant-in-room.html" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">James'</a><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> thoughts on Delicious.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Nevertheless I have added the gadget below from my Delicious account. I have just added in some links related to my favourite musician, <a href="http://www.delicious.com/elliemurphy/davidford">David Ford</a>, to make my bookmarks significantly more interesting than just having business-related websites on there. </span><br />
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</div><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Summary of thing 10: A useful tool for collecting together websites on a topic but I am unconvinced about the merits of tagging/folksonomies and using this as a discovery tool. If I wanted to find websites on a particular topic I'm not sure Delicious would be my first port of call. I like the RSS features though and the tagging-RSS combination may be a more useful discovery tool.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Photo: Pudding at <a href="http://www.gibside-hotel.co.uk/restaurant.php">Paco's</a>, Newcastle taken by Ellie</span><br />
<script src="http://feeds.delicious.com/v2/js/elliemurphy?title=My%20Delicious%20Bookmarks&icon=m&count=5&sort=date&tags&extended&name&showadd" type="text/javascript">
</script>I'll Be There For Youhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09496110336892722809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4560749604652261903.post-55001638667852412862011-02-18T14:31:00.000-08:002011-02-18T14:34:16.627-08:00Thing 9: create your own search engine<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-exPXtVSvNo4/TV7xvSj7xoI/AAAAAAAAAEM/sjs6LH_YEgs/s1600/P3211836.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-exPXtVSvNo4/TV7xvSj7xoI/AAAAAAAAAEM/sjs6LH_YEgs/s400/P3211836.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I found this "thing" quite frustrating. I created my <a href="http://rollyo.com/">Rollyo</a> (roll your own search engine) quite easily; I decided to create a search engine for the 23 things participant blogs. I added the search box onto my blog and liked the look of it (reminds me of those sweets you can roll out). I can see how this is really useful in this particular circumstance and for narrowing down searches. For example: want to know what Westminster participants thought of Flickr? Do a search on my Rollyo and see everyone's Flickr related thoughts in one fell swoop. Well, that's the theory. I, like <a href="http://23thingsmusically.blogspot.com/2011/02/thing-9-make-your-own-search-engine.html">another Wmin23 participant</a>, found that it was only retrieving results from a couple of the blogs (mine prominently), even though I knew it should retrieve more. </div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Call it my generation Y tendencies but I wasn't going to sit there to figure out what was going on with this tool when a click away is Google......So next stop- Google customised search, same principle as the above but Google not Yahoo! I have added the search box underneath the Rollyo one. I admit I have a slight love of all things Google and love adding extra Google tools to my portfolio but even trying to be unbiased the advantages for me were:</div><ul style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><li>I already have a Google account which I use for many tools and regularly so am unlikely to forget the username and password (tempting fate there)</li>
<li>There didn't seem to be a limit to the number of sites to add to the custom search (unlike Rollyo's 25) although it's possible I just didn't hit the limit but it's certainly more</li>
<li>You can colloborate so others can contribute sites to your custom search- which I think is an extremely useful feature</li>
<li>It worked</li>
</ul><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I guess the last one is pretty essential. I don't know what went wrong with the Rollyo one, maybe it was user error and maybe I'm missing something really obvious but still, if you search "Flickr" in the Rollyo one and then "Flickr" in the Google one you will see the difference (unless it really is just me.....). The only gripe I have about adding the Google search box was that when I added the HTML coding to my blog it changed the main search box, the one that searches only my blog, to the style I had chosen for the customised search box. Now it looks a bit weird and I can't change it. But usability over aesthetics. Also I did like the fact that for the Rollyo search box you can create different collections of websites and choose to search any of those collections from the one search box. </div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Summary of thing 9: I liked the concept in theory, it works well for a scenario like this but I think the usefulness might be limited. The tool let me down slightly but Google came to the rescue (as if they need the ego boost). I guess for work I could collect together, for example, fashion websites and provide the narrowed down search for them. Now talking of collecting websites together, I feel like another "thing" coming on......</span><br />
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</div><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Picture: crocuses in Harrogate taken by Ellie Murphy</span></span>I'll Be There For Youhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09496110336892722809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4560749604652261903.post-3418304455712924052011-02-07T08:50:00.000-08:002011-02-07T08:50:35.023-08:00Thing 8: be your own librarian<div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">...aka Library Thing.</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">For a little while now I have used <a href="http://www.librarything.com/">LibraryThing</a> as a way of promoting new books on my fashion business blog. When I get the order slips for books I simply add the ISBN into my LibraryThing account and it updates the widget on my blog. Visually it looks nice and it's an easy way to keep a record (and to promote) new books in the library. I also like the way you can separate the books into collections so I can still add other books into my library without it affecting the collection of fashion business new books. It can be seen in situ at <a href="http://www.westminsterfashionbusiness.blogspot.com/">http://www.westminsterfashionbusiness.blogspot.com/</a></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"></div><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I've always wanted to explore a bit further the possibilities LibraryThing offers such as doing something with the RSS feed or organising collections/tags based on module reading lists but time for exploration always evades me. Also when <a href="http://www.westminster.ac.uk/librarysearch">Library Search</a> came along it seemed to offer some of these possibilities anyway (such as tagging and saving to the e-shelf to then be emailed on), but again time to fully explore and exploit is somewhere far in the distance. So for now my new books feed on my fashion business blog is as far as I have got. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Having logged into my LibraryThing account for 23 things and having started to think I was creating a weird mixture adding favourite "reading books" to the business and fashion books collections, a vague recollection of having a "personal" LibraryThing account floated into my head. A few username and password combinations later and hey presto a glorious collection of books returned to me as if old friends. I then remembered being very bored a couple of years ago and in the excitement of discovering LibraryThing back then I had attempted to add from memory books I had read. I gave up soon after never to return to this Library Thing account again until today. Just logging in now though I find messages such as someone has added me to a list of their "interesting libraries". It's certainly eclectic if not interesting (where else would you find Virgil rubbing shoulders with Karl Pilkington). <a href="http://www.librarything.com/catalog.php?view=elmurphy&collectionname=yourlibrary&collection=1&shelf=shelf&sort=stamp">The library can be viewed here.</a> No room to add a widget to my blog so I'll just add this to this post instead: 10 of my favourite books of all time. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Summary of Thing 8: quite a drain on time if you want to do some retro-cataloguing but a great tool if you are adding a few books every so often to keep a collection together. Depending on its different uses it strikes me both as completely pointless (as seen in my collection of personal books) and really quite useful (as seen in my "new books in the library" collection). I think Library Search now offers the kind of interactivity with tagging that I'd often envisaged using with LibraryThing so I perhaps will only move away from LibraryThing, not towards, in the future.</span><br />
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<div id="we0283e5b80e5b7d2ee4f40736e1464b6"></div><script charset="UTF-8" src="http://www.librarything.com/widget_get.php?userid=elmurphy&theID=we0283e5b80e5b7d2ee4f40736e1464b6" type="text/javascript">
</script><noscript>&lt;a href="http://www.librarything.com/profile/elmurphy"&gt;My Library&lt;/a&gt; at &lt;a href="http://www.librarything.com"&gt;LibraryThing&lt;/a&gt;</noscript>I'll Be There For Youhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09496110336892722809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4560749604652261903.post-44088182539386348222011-01-26T07:35:00.000-08:002011-01-26T07:36:13.437-08:00Thing 7: more<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLknf_ADGLSY_HsjCtF59cKVq95knYr83V6nwFSLCYzBhdv5cLcKlmn1L2IqZ_4_4lHOjADHsGp1nJAODSdFc7pbS_-6cjaHJ9mZ-ID4MHJLMgazG450NEIDr4caMAjkAR0NWnV72XmPM/s1600/wordle3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="354" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLknf_ADGLSY_HsjCtF59cKVq95knYr83V6nwFSLCYzBhdv5cLcKlmn1L2IqZ_4_4lHOjADHsGp1nJAODSdFc7pbS_-6cjaHJ9mZ-ID4MHJLMgazG450NEIDr4caMAjkAR0NWnV72XmPM/s640/wordle3.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />
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<div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Sorry....couldn't resist....book 1 of Virgil's Aeneid as soon through <a href="http://www.wordle.net/">Wordle's</a> eyes. This time round I realised/was reminded you can also change the number of words that feature in the Wordle (there are more in book 1 that don't feature here......). I also realised it has a "remove common Latin words" feature (brilliant- I love Wordle more and more) and that you can manually remove words from your Wordle so if you decided 'iam' was too much of a common word it can be removed. I like the proximity of <i>Dido</i> and <i>Aeneas</i> here.....and <i>amore</i> is not too far away. So I have learnt it is also a great tool for Classics teachers......</div>I'll Be There For Youhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09496110336892722809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4560749604652261903.post-5433018497899330892011-01-26T07:00:00.000-08:002011-01-26T07:00:43.717-08:00Thing 7: Wordle: step away from the randomize button<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIBkFI87k1vw7-JLZHVapBAe25oGXWW_hDivIlCPFpS02Hv4pRNXe7WmS7RYswkMaJueSf89DDMu_XVi6ZUGwF0gD3h13UFCQXwzaeua5erEnBP7nrziEkR0qsz5gGXDVg5iIRSm3HOow/s1600/wordle2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="274" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIBkFI87k1vw7-JLZHVapBAe25oGXWW_hDivIlCPFpS02Hv4pRNXe7WmS7RYswkMaJueSf89DDMu_XVi6ZUGwF0gD3h13UFCQXwzaeua5erEnBP7nrziEkR0qsz5gGXDVg5iIRSm3HOow/s640/wordle2.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I started using Wordle at my previous job (FE college) and got a bit carried away with printing out and creating PDFs of my beautiful Wordle creations. I first discovered Wordle through Flickr- I must have been looking for some inspiration and came across other people's Wordle creations. I experimented with them for a bit, trying to create something to help with explaining (or maybe avoiding) Dewey, gaining the idea from what I had seen on Flickr. See <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/isg-online/sets/72157607755852331/">here</a> for example.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I have used them once or twice at Westminster Uni, once for our business blog as a </span><a href="http://westminsterbusinessstudies.blogspot.com/2010/06/blog-news.html" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">visual representation of the blog posts</a><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> so far, but I have never used them for anything very imaginative and I like </span><a href="http://em23things.blogspot.com/2011/01/wordle.html" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Em's idea</a><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> of how they could be used in a training session. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The one above is a representation of feedback from a recent training session I did, asking students to name the most useful part of the session. The Library Search "e-shelf" feature often seems to be a big hit with the students and its prominence in the feedback confirms this. I forgot how addictive the "randomize" button on Wordle is though, every Wordle that comes up I think, "that's nice but not </span><i style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">quite</i><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> right" and hit randomize again. I like that it is quite easy to adapt things to how you want it, like getting rid of common english words or having everything in lower-case. I understand that the Java-ness of it causes some problems for saving it/uploading it. I avoided all that by taking a screen capture (using </span><a href="http://www.faststone.org/FSCaptureDetail.htm" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">faststone screen capture</a><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">) and saving it as a JPEG. I then wondered when I uploaded it whether the picture would be clearer if I went down the HTML route (Wordle gives you coding for your picture if you save it to their gallery); I concluded quite soon after that I had done right in the first place as the picture from the HTML made it too small and then grainy if you enlarged. I'm sure there are ways around this but life's too short to be messing around with HTML coding. </span> <br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Thing 7 summary: I love Wordle as it is so preeeeetty and easy to use. I could definitely be more imaginative about what I use it for though. I think if I was a school librarian I would see more potential uses but perhaps I am not thinking hard enough. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Picture source: words by my business students, picture by <a href="http://www.wordle.net/">Wordle</a></span>I'll Be There For Youhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09496110336892722809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4560749604652261903.post-69799184043662015642010-12-14T04:12:00.000-08:002010-12-14T04:12:30.825-08:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEge7zoZHJnFTC2omN4qdaR4o6DtNryTBAcvUcu3c0auoA5VP5UdEgv6tK0v7gomOmRbI7hyRcoCcBZu5IGBdytBtcM-lYD60qc1I_8U0YDJLp34RAR4MDUsfDsU80t-Hm-nVwg-Aw0WhNI/s1600/thing64.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEge7zoZHJnFTC2omN4qdaR4o6DtNryTBAcvUcu3c0auoA5VP5UdEgv6tK0v7gomOmRbI7hyRcoCcBZu5IGBdytBtcM-lYD60qc1I_8U0YDJLp34RAR4MDUsfDsU80t-Hm-nVwg-Aw0WhNI/s1600/thing64.png" /></a></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The third image generator to try was </span><a href="http://cooltext.com/" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Cool Text</a><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">. This was my least favourite of the three image generators. To be honest it reminded me quite a lot of school lessons in logo design on CorelDRAW in the mid-Nineties. OK, it makes it very quick to create a button but most of the styles you can use (and there's not many) made me feel like I was back in the Nineties trying to create a design for a drinks can. I think I'd rather spend a little bit longer creating something myself.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I did like the font section of the site, though, particularly the Brandname fonts. With a bit of playing on my laptop at home I did manage to install one of the fonts there but can't seem to do it at work, maybe because you need admin rights? So although I liked it, there's not much I can do with it at the moment.....</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Thing 6 summary: BigHugeLabs was definitely my favourite of the three as it gave you much more of a range of different things to try and I liked the functionality with Facebook and Flickr. In terms of producing a quality image, though, I think Letter James was the best. These tools have been fun to use and will be a nice way to add some creativity to my blog posts. I think it was apt that this "thing" comes just before Christmas as producing Festive greetings seems to be a popular way to use these sites. I can't say this is the most useful of the 23 things for work but it will certainly give me more options in areas where I can be creative, such as the blogs. </span>I'll Be There For Youhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09496110336892722809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4560749604652261903.post-65877679413797052762010-12-10T05:32:00.000-08:002010-12-10T05:32:13.171-08:00A Map created in BigHugeLabs.com<div><b>My European travels</b><br />
<img alt="Make yours @ BigHugeLabs.com" src="http://chart.apis.google.com/chart?cht=t&chs=440x220&chco=ffffff,3399ff,3399ff&chf=bg,s,eaf7fe&chtm=europe&chld=BEHRCYDKEEFIFRDEGIGRGGVAIEITLUMTNLNOPTRUESSETRGBUS&chd=s:0000000000000000000000000" /><br />
<a href="http://bighugelabs.com/map.php" style="font-size: 75%;">Make yours @ BigHugeLabs.com</a><br />
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Another one of the products on BigHugeLabs- create a map and highlight areas you have been or areas you would like to visit. </div>I'll Be There For Youhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09496110336892722809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4560749604652261903.post-647934490171791472010-12-10T05:29:00.000-08:002010-12-10T05:29:51.668-08:00Thing 6: bighugelabs<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEyKeDZ6DuDomgFz0g5dva_b9Dgjhv0SC9rxwVxhoKG7q28gBMDwFqHd5T0G3GENheoG2WqzhD36jf81J8kwZcN0ac4GFy3Pkd02TaBLDbzqG5JuCNYaB2SO6sziJyAzH87IXQKJgMQRk/s1600/thing63.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEyKeDZ6DuDomgFz0g5dva_b9Dgjhv0SC9rxwVxhoKG7q28gBMDwFqHd5T0G3GENheoG2WqzhD36jf81J8kwZcN0ac4GFy3Pkd02TaBLDbzqG5JuCNYaB2SO6sziJyAzH87IXQKJgMQRk/s320/thing63.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The next image generator to try out was <a href="http://bighugelabs.com/">BigHugeLabs</a>. I am glad this one was on the list as I'd written down its URL ages ago when it was featured in CILIP Update but hadn't got round to ever looking at it. My first impression was that I longed for the simplicity I had dismissed for Letter James; the first page was a little bit overwhelming with the number of different products I could create. Did I want Bead Art or a Lolcat generator? I only had time to try out a couple of things so I look forward to seeing other people's creations to see if some of the other products are worth exploring. </div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I chose Mosaic maker, I really liked the fact that you could select photos either from Flickr or Facebook as this made it so much easier than uploading photos again. You do need to have them pre-organised into either a photoset (Flickr) or an album (Facebook) though. I chose one of my Facebook albums from a recent gig by my favourite band, Jimmy Eat World. It was a bit restrictive in that once created you couldn't decide which pictures went where; the original picture that had been selected for the central one of the mosaic wasn't one of the best, so I had to go back into my Facebook album, swap the order of the pictures there, and then go back to bighugelabs to create the mosaic again, now with the picture I wanted as the central picture.</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">This would be a great tool to create photo montages of events that you could send to friends. I can't really see any uses for work as yet so any ideas welcome!</div>I'll Be There For Youhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09496110336892722809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4560749604652261903.post-6502474263269422402010-12-09T11:09:00.000-08:002010-12-09T11:09:10.095-08:00Thing 6: image generators<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuTIxPnKlTzGaV-vIsEXAJTodizZ7zW6vqvd0Tq5frsTk_PH7jffGwTvsZvbzuWOYrQbSVwjQOswcOfKiuQafvu_zEXNd1yfjL88Ja_i3XibdLehF4DrD6Cm0hpGv3rK_W53n_wduTwg0/s1600/thing6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="226" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuTIxPnKlTzGaV-vIsEXAJTodizZ7zW6vqvd0Tq5frsTk_PH7jffGwTvsZvbzuWOYrQbSVwjQOswcOfKiuQafvu_zEXNd1yfjL88Ja_i3XibdLehF4DrD6Cm0hpGv3rK_W53n_wduTwg0/s320/thing6.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Thing 6 is to try out three different image generators, I will be posting my creative efforts and what I thought of each image generator here. </div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The first one I tried was </span><a href="http://www.letterjames.com/" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Letter James</a><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> It was very simple to use, no log-ins or downloads required. By the same token though it was very simplistic. Fun, but a bit limited. I'm not sure, other than creating a fun picture to enliven a blog <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">or sending a free e-card to friends, where else I can go with this. </span>Nevertheless, as a former Classics student and in homage to the Monty Python boys I had fun creating the above.</span>I'll Be There For Youhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09496110336892722809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4560749604652261903.post-48409858886838338772010-11-25T10:55:00.000-08:002010-11-25T10:55:27.948-08:00Thing 5: Creative Commons<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/smurphers/5204245894/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" title="Jimmy Eat World live @ Brixton Academy November 2010 by smurphers, on Flickr"><img alt="Jimmy Eat World live @ Brixton Academy November 2010" height="320" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4106/5204245894_b2bc8a0a34.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I can't imagine why any would want to use my work but there it is.....<a href="http://creativecommons.org/">Creative Commons</a> license added to this blog.</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I have freely used other people's Creative Commons licensed work on my blog (including people's <a href="http://www.flickr.com/">Flickr</a> images and the brilliant <a href="http://xkcd.com/">xkcd</a> web comic) so I guess it's only fair to return the favour. However when it came down to the crunch I was tempted to go for the more restrictive license and I notice from <a href="http://www.google.com/reader/bundle/user/00060848832355771002/bundle/Wmin%2023%20things">other 23 things blogs</a> that I wasn't the only one to feel like that. I don't really know why I felt like that but I also felt like that about my Flickr pictures too, and yet I'm sure if anyone was mad enough to use my work I'd feel very honoured they did. </div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Having thought about it for a while and inspired by some of my favourite bands who, in the name of creativity, are a lot more open now about sharing their work and allowing others to share it, I decided to go for a fairly open license instead. Then, freed by my decision, I started to add a Creative Commons license to some of my Flickr pics too.</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Summary of thing 5: my blog looks much prettier thanks to the Creative Commons license and other people's work so it's only fair to share and share alike. The Creative Commons banner is now displayed at the bottom of my blog.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Photo: Jimmy Eat World live at Brixton Academy, November 2010 taken by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/smurphers/">Ellie</a> now licensed under the Creative Commons <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/">by-sa</a></span>I'll Be There For Youhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09496110336892722809noreply@blogger.com0